This is the Cato Daily podcast for Friday, April 4th, 2025.

I'm Caleb Brown.

What built our current infrastructure of federal surveillance and political repression?

It was a series of key moments and rising fears that led Congress and presidents to move forward with abusing the rights of Americans

and ultimately creating what we now know as the national security state. Cato's Patrick

Eddington is author of the new book, The Triumph of Fear, Domestic Surveillance and Political

Repression from McKinley through Eisenhower. We spoke for a Cato Book Forum yesterday.

Most of the first part of the United States of America, the means of political repression and the means of surveillance, what were they? In the early days, of course,

you know, very, very limited. The federal government, once it was actually constituted into the

Republic that we still kind of have today, you didn't have any kind of generally dedicated police force, right? You don't really get

anything like that, ultimately, until we get into the Civil War period and post-Civil War period

with the creation of the United States Secret Service. But, of course, the post office was available

for purposes of political oppression, and it was used as such. And then, of course, the post office was available for purposes of political repression, and it was used as such.

And then, of course, the Congress itself, you mentioned, you know, at the opening here,

the A&N and Sedition Acts passed literally a decade, just a decade, after the Constitution came into effect.

So this entire problem of political repression has been with us,

unfortunately, for a long time. It has tended to be, and this all depends on one's perspective,

and I understand that, but it has tended to be relatively episodic. That's not really been the

case the last 100 plus years or so, and that's really ultimately what this is about i do want to take one just very quick moment

um to thank my editor don jacobs of georgetown university press um unfortunately contractually he he does kind of have a say about the rights here in terms of anything that would happen with Hollywood.

So I wanted to make sure that we clarified that.

But what's in this book, essentially, is the story of how we got to where we are, including the incidents and the episodes, the ongoing episodes, that Caleb has described,

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